


You Are Not Your Wounds

by cophinehaus



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: Abusive Parents, Angst, F/F, Fluff, Im being generous w tags, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Minor Character Death, Origin Story, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sad, Self-Hatred, Violence, but some REALLY angsty angst, current GB flash forwards, like fucking sad, theres some really fluffy fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-08-12 17:45:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7943497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cophinehaus/pseuds/cophinehaus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The walls of Jillian’s cramped bedroom in the townhouse they live in has scorch marks and scratches hastily hidden by crayon blueprints and science posters. Her mother figures if she's going to take things apart and put them together again she might as well have the proper equipment. </p><p>An alternate origin story for one Jillian Holtzmann. Eventual holtzbert.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

Jillian’s fifth birthday present is a small mix match collection of tools and a tiny pair of safety goggles. Her soft, childish hands have already taken apart and put together countless desk lamps, clocks and walkmans, a wind-up radio and (much to her mother’s distress) the family VCR. The VCR player was fine in the end but every now and then it would start to whir loudly and vibrate. The walls of Jillian’s cramped bedroom in the townhouse they live in has scorch marks and scratches hastily hidden by crayon blueprints and science posters. Her mother figures if she's going to take things apart and put them together again she might as well have the proper equipment.  
  
Jillian walks to school on her own with a thrift store backpack and hand me down shorts. She’s humming a nonsensical tune and counting the cracks in the sidewalk so she doesn’t look as excited as she is at the prospect of starting first grade, her first chance to _really_ get into the American school system.  
  
_“_ You mean there’s an _entire class_ just for **_science_** _?!”_ she’d all but shrieked while Joy wrestled a sweater over her mop of curls, gently pushing her out the door. She shouts a reminder to remember that rhyme about sticks and stones, the one Jillian couldn’t forget if she tried.  
  
All the other kids seem to hate school, which just doesn’t make _any_ sense because Jillian absolutely _loves_ school and would go through as much of it as she can possibly get her hands on. Kindergarten had been a walk in the park and she’d loved all of it. Except for nap time. She considered that a waste of time and resources- she was here to learn, not nap, damnit. Luckily Jillian figured out that if she timed her antics perfectly she’d have a time out that would avoid naptime altogether. The other kids quickly learned to give her a wide berth, lest she try to talk to them and word-vomit all over them.  
  
She sits dead center of the first row of Miss Haddon’s first grade class so she won’t miss a word that she says. Her knee bounces against the underside of her desk and she’s blind to the glares everyone else gives her as the teacher goes over addition and subtraction. Jillian gives Miss Haddon her welcome assignment in under two minutes and her teacher doesn’t exactly know what to do with a child who’s scribbling strings of semi-advanced algebra in the margins of the colour coded times tables, which Jillian had not only completed in full but filled the rest of the table until she ran out of paper. Definitely past the ten times table.  
  
Peering down her glasses at the tiny firecracker grinning up at her, she reaches over to her other curriculum binders and pulls out the welcome assignment for the grade two’s. Jillian breezes through the entire thing, and it’s not just math she’s excelling at. Even her reading levels and comprehension are off the charts for a six year old. Miss Haddon swallows and she gives Jillian a feeble smile.  
  
Jillian’s mother is called in to discuss the prospect of moving her straight to grade three, (she’s secretly relieved that Jillian hadn’t been in trouble or the subject of cruelty on her first day). They could’ve gone right to grade seven with her intellectual prowess, but that seemed like a bit of an extreme age gap between her and her classmates for a six year old. The Principal caps his pen and mutters that she will still be well ahead of all of her classmates in grade three.  
  
Joy turns to her daughter and gives her a look of pride mixed with wariness. She sees the pointing and whispering that Jillian doesn’t and knows firsthand that kids don’t get nicer the older they get. Jillian has never had a friend. Joy’s gut turns at the thought of her little girl being teased just for being her beautiful self. The child in question squirms in her seat, beaming at the recognition of her brilliance and she can’t bring herself to say no. Grade three, here she comes.  
  
That night Joy sits Jillian down and very seriously teaches her about what it means to be a bigger person- never hurt anyone else, and to no matter what, never give up on herself. Jillian listens with rapt attention, soaking in every word. She even interrupts her mother with a raised pudgy finger and darts off only to return with a notepad. When Joy is done and Jillian’s notes are complete she asks if Jillian has any questions.   
  
After a long silence Jillian asks timidly if they can have dinosaur nuggets for dinner. She fights back a smile to keep her face serious as she rises from her seat and stalks dramatically to the freezer, never breaking eye contact with her daughter. Jillian wrings her hands and waits with baited breath for whatever will come next.  
  
With one fluid and practiced move she whips the box of nuggets out of the freezer and roars triumphantly. Jillian squeals a laugh and hops off her chair, adopting raptor arms before roaring alongside her mother.  
  
They cheer and clap and Jillian falls asleep on the couch watching their nearly worn out cassette tape of Land Before Time with a half assembled (disassembled?) calculator on her lap. Joy tries to quell the fear climbing up her throat that she’s had since the call from the Principal earlier that day. She scoops Jillian into her arms and her daughter wraps her arms around her neck, legs around her belly and sleepily mumbles “I love you, mama” into her neck. Her eyes well and she squeezes her baby in her arms, “I love you too Jilly-bean,” then quieter, “don’t let this world change you. I will never stop loving you, babygirl.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first chapter felt a little short so I nearly doubled the length for chapter two! The rest of the chapters will probably be about this long now. :)

She’s graduated from taking apart and reassembling household objects to creating Franken-devices of varying use and explosivity. Her favourite by far was the device that cooked eggs in a small containment unit through small (but controlled, she assured her frightened mother) chemical reactions. Once ‘cooked’ the eggs ranged from completely raw to a goopy mess of ash, and anywhere in between. She named it the Egg-Cellent Cooker and displayed it on their small counter-top proudly atop a specially-created stand. Joy had to slowly and gently explain why she had reservations about using different combinations of elements to cook their eggs, and Jillian promised to not make any more inventions that would deal with food. She grumbled for half a day and hammered loudly for other half.  
  
As expected, Jillian goes through school with superhuman speed. The school board refuses to let her skip any more grades simply because at the rate she was advancing there was a very good chance she would graduate before she turned sixteen, the age of the average sophomore at her high school.  
  
Jillian doodles in the margins of her physics quiz and tries to pretend that she doesn’t feel all her classmates looking at her with distaste. The general populace of her class didn’t feel great about the fact that a fourteen year old had the highest grade in AP vectors. And AP calculus, and physics, and everything that wasn’t Home Ec. She seemed to start too many fires for the teacher’s liking to get good grades in that class, banished from anywhere in the class with a heat element. She’s perfectly happy to munch gummies she hides in her cargo shorts in the corner while studying some chemistry.  
  
Jillian lets her gaze wander to the bench two rows to the left of her own where Brittany Peterson sits precariously on her lab stool and chews on the end of her pen. Their pop quiz today was slightly more challenging than the usual subject matter, to give her physics teacher some credit but it had still taken Jillian a grand total of five minutes despite being given an hour to complete. Brittany furrows her pencilled brows and Jillian fights a twinge in her chest. She tries and fails to not look at her thighs in her pleated skirt.  
  
Jillian’s eyes trace over all the soft lines of her hips, her back, her shoulders. She gets lost in the curve of her neck, the slope of her nose and the corners of her mouth. Jillian thinks about if she were to calculate the exact angle of her jaw, pencil all of her gentle curves onto her graph paper, if- maybe... would it be as beautiful as the real thing? (She hypothesizes no, probably not).  
  
Brittany’s brown eyes flash up between her bangs around the classroom a couple times before locking onto Jillian’s. Jillian feels her palms start to sweat and a furious blush erupts across her face. Brittany grins with her teeth around her glitter pen and throws Jillian a playful wink. Her heart jumps into her throat and she scribbles nonsense onto her page as a means of ripping her eyes away from that pen and those lips and what they might feel like against hers.  
  
Brittany Peterson is the first beautiful thing that Jillian wants to touch without taking it apart.

* * *

Jillian knows what she is. She’d thought she'd known something since she was about eight or so, but now she _really_ knows. She knows that she likes girls how girls are supposed to like boys. She knows she never liked boys, that’s why she never got those ‘crushes’ or those certain celebrities that everyone her age seemed to unanimously fall in love with. Well she did get crushes, just on _girls_ and she did like celebrities but they were _women_ and then she feels that much more alien to her classmates.  
  
But right now none of those icky alien feelings are happening because Brittany Peterson is kissing her under the bleachers and Jillian feels like she can finally breathe because _maybe she’s not the only alien-girl._ Brittany hooks her fingers in the straps of Jillian’s overalls and tugs, trembling hands fall to Brittany’s hips and a pair of hips clumsily collide with her own and “ _ohmygod”_ Jillian sighs into her lips. A soft tongue licks into her open mouth and Jillian thinks she’s going to die on the spot. She kisses fiercely to the tune of _not alone, not alone, alien-girls!  
  
_ Jillian gets home late and has a grin on her face as big as can be. Joy has a hand on her hip and a wooden spoon in the other when she asks where the hell she’s been but her daughter can’t even look her in the eyes she’s so dazed, Jesus is she _stoned?_ Her hair’s a mess and oh, my god is that-  
  
“Jillian Laura Holtzmann, is that a _hickey_ on your neck?!”  
  
That gets her attention. Wide blue eyes snap to her mother’s and she whips a hand up to her neck, tugging at her jean jacket collar in a feeble attempt at subtlety. Joy fights a wild grin threatening to burst onto her features. She at least has to _seem_ upset.  
  
“Uh, um- it’s not... I mean- mom! No! What’s a hickey? Ha! Me, a hick- d-do you even _know_ me, mother- I mean... _really._ Th-the nerve...”  
  
“Who’s it from?”  
  
“Who’s what from?”  
  
“Jillian.”  
  
“Mom.”  
  
“Jilly-bean.”  
  
“ _Mom.”  
  
__“_ Jill-o-saurus rex? _”  
  
__“MOM,_ oh my _god_.”  
  
Jillian goes silent and her smile falls as concern washes over her face. Then fear. Her eyes are glued to her ratty boots and she picks at her ever-healing fingertips. Joy’s teasing grin drops immediately. She steps toward her daughter and puts her hands on her shoulders, Jillian doesn’t look up. If anything she looks even _more_ afraid, looks like she’s bracing for impact or detonation. Panic starts up Joy’s spine.  
  
“Hey, hey... baby girl, you know I won’t ever make you tell me stuff,” Joy cups a trembling jaw and feels her eyes water when she feels Jillian stifling tears against her hand, “I’m just teasin’, it’s your business, okay? You know I love you, you can tell me anything in the world, but I'm not gonna press you. Look at me Jilly-bean,” Joy pleads.  
  
Jillian finally looks at her mother’s eyes and she sees- only love. Her mother has only ever shown her compassion, and care, and acceptance and _love_ and Jillian can’t take it. She bursts into sobs. Her chest hurts from keeping it in for so long and she scrunches her eyes shut and just wraps her arms around her and clings. Joy strokes her unruly blonde curls and whispers little nothings and just holds her. Her upper body shakes and she cries big ugly heaving sobs until she’s done.  
  
Joy guides them to their couch and sits, never letting go. Joy softly sings an old lullaby against Jillian’s curls. They sit together for ten minutes before Jillian actually stops crying fully. She nuzzles into Joy’s collarbone and throws her arm and both legs over her mother and takes a big, shaky breath. They both wait patiently for the other.  
  
“I think something’s wrong with me, mama,” she sounds like a hollow and broken thing, “and I don’t... I don’t think I can fix it.”  
  
Joy considers this sentence very carefully. Weighs what’s going on in her mind versus what could be going on in her daughter’s.  
  
“What do you mean, something’s ‘wrong’ with you?"  
  
Another long silence. Joy rubs her daughter’s back in little circles. _Take your time, baby._ Jillian inhales deeply.  
  
“I like girls. I don’t like boys, I don’t want boys, I wa-want to be w-with girls... I’m sorry,” she blubbers and scrunches her eyes tight.  
  
Joy’s heart clenches hard. She’s so, so relieved. She lets out a long exhale and moves her hand from Jillian’s back to wipe at her own eyes. The girl in her lap sits up and moves to get off the couch.  
  
“I’ll go pack my things.”  
  
“What d’you- Jillian, baby, c’mere.”  
  
Her usually bright face is blotchy from crying, her vibrant blue eyes look flat and utterly exhausted. Fourteen year old Jillian looks heartbroken. She looks unsure, guarded like a dog who hasn’t ever been pet before, but she lays back down in her mother’s arms. She feels rigid and Joy doesn’t know what else to do but kiss the crown of her head and squeeze her tight. She relaxes a little in her arms, but not completely. She’s still ready to bolt.  
  
“Listen to me, you listening? Jillian,” she cups her jaw again and makes her look her in the eyes, “ _nothing_ is wrong with you, you hear me? _Nothing._ Not how you dress, or how you talk, or how goddamn _brilliant_ you shine, or who you want to love. There's nothing to 'fix' cause nothin's broke. You are smart, and funny, and caring, and talented, and inventive. You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, nothing to ‘fix’ about the way you are.”  
  
Jillian’s eyes are glistening again and Joy uses the pad of her thumb to wipe away an errant tear.  
  
“It’s not wrong to love girls. You’re okay for loving girls. I love you just the same. I will never stop loving you, babygirl.” Joy smiles at her. Jillian’s lip quivers.  
  
“You’re _so_ beautiful, Jillian. I love you, okay? That ain’t about to change because you got a hickey from a _girl_.”  
  
Jillian cracks a smile and a rusty laugh escapes from her throat. She wipes harshly at her red-rimmed eyes and sniffs hard.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“You okay?”  
  
“Yeah, I’m okay. I just- didn’t know... I was a little lost.”  
  
Joy hugs her tight and doesn’t let go for what seems like hours. Jillian breathes in her mom’s perfume, her smell, feels how soft her sweater is. She smiles because despite being an alien-girl, and not having any friends, and being too young for her brain, her mom never failed to love her.  
  
“I love you so much, mama.”  
  
“Love you too, now c’mon, dinner’s burning. You must be starving from your _extra-curricular activities,”_ she says with an exaggerated wink. Jillian grins and dramatically rolls her eyes.  
  
It is the last time that Jillian Holtzmann feels love for nearly twenty years.


	3. Chapter Three

She gets home from class ten days after the hickey incident and the first thing she sees when she slings her backpack onto the ground is her mother buckling onto her hands and knees. Joy clutches at her chest with panicky fingers and wide eyes. She’s gasping for air and shaking and Jillian doesn’t know what to do, harsh and strangled choking noises wrench their way out of her mother’s chest and Jillian’s hands start to shake. Her combat boots are rooted to the floor and all she can do is watch in horror when Joy’s eyes slip shut, collapses with a _thud_ onto the carpet and goes limp.

 

She calls 911.

 

She doesn't know what to do but her brain clears long enough to press two fingers to a clammy pulse point and start doing CPR. Paramedics and police arrive and Jillian has to be forcibly torn away from doing compressions on her mother’s chest. Two men in uniform resume CPR while another preps a machine and Jillian can see her mother’s lungs being forcibly filled and emptied beneath her ribcage. Her heart feels like it’s pumping concrete and her throat is tight and her hands won't stop moving and Joy somehow gets paler. Blue and red flash through the windows, bathing the room in flashes of colour and shadow.

 

After what seems like ages, Joy’s eyes flutter open and she takes in a heaving breath. Jillian’s cheeks balloon with a giant exhale, her blue eyes fixed on her mother’s chest and the gloved hand still resting atop it. Joy is still grimacing and her legs are squirming against the carpet. Large dark patches colour her shirt under her arms and at her neckline, sweat coating her neck and forehead. She glances between the two men who have backed up to give her some air as she tries to breathe again. Jillian has calmed down a fraction until Joy tries and fails to roll onto one side and vomits onto herself and the floor, her thin body folding into itself and shoulders shooting up to her jaw.

 

The men aid in turning her onto her side fully before Joy vomits again onto the carpet and Jillian is panicking. Her mother’s breathing is laboured and uneven.

 

“Ma’am, do you think you can sit up against the couch?”

 

Joy doesn’t answer, but continues breathing heavily.

 

“We can help you, both of us.”

 

Still no answer.

 

One of the paramedics moves Joy’s vomit-streaked hair off of her face.

 

“She’s out again. Resume CPR, get the defib.”

 

A shout rips out of her daughter’s throat and Jillian has tears streaming down her face, she's wringing her sweaty hands and her nose is running. A police officer struggles to hold Jillian by her forearms to keep her from bolting to her mother, he tries to escort her outside so she doesn’t have to watch the scene unfolding and Jillian grabs the countertop so hard that her knuckles turn white beneath her skin. She chokes out a determined “I’m _not_ leaving her,” and he gives up trying to haul her out but keeps his hands around her biceps. The defibrillator begins charging and it’s low hum soon changes to a high-pitched squealing. Joy’s chain is ripped from her neck and tossed onto the floor.

 

“Clear!”

 

A loud thump and clack accompanies the extreme arch of Joy’s spine against the carpet. Jillian’s throat closes and the room is silent as they wait. Nothing. The machine hums and squeals again.

 

“Clear!” Joy’s spine arches again.

 

Jillian watches one thousand volts of pure electricity rage through her mother’s body sixteen times before the paramedics give each other a look before slowly peeling off their gloves. The room is absolutely silent save for Jillian’s soft whimpering and her boots fidgeting against the carpet. Her red-rimmed eyes dart from man to man, silently asking “ _well? What’s the next step?”_

 

They pack up their machine with its cords and parts that would’ve excited her to no end any other day and deliberately avoid eye contact. Jillian looks at all those metal pieces and wires and little sticky pads and she’s not excited, her gut feels sickly and her throat is dry _._ It tastes acrid on her tongue, the world is crumbling and falling and machines aren’t working and her mom is, she- her mom... she, sh-

 

“March 16th 1998, time of death, 4:16pm.”

 

Fourteen year old Jillian screams as if she’s been shot.

 

Fourteen year old Jillian howls with her jaw as far open as it can hinge.

 

Fourteen year old Jillian chokes on the blood her throat makes and she doesn't stop screaming until long after her mother is zipped into a plastic bag.

 

Fourteen year old Jillian is torn in two.

 

* * *

 

Through a series of hurried phone meetings and background checks, Jillian is delivered into the begrudging custody of her father while the court decides what to do with her. The last time Jillian remembers seeing her father she was about four or five years old. She remembers the smell of alcohol on his breath when he said hello and how terrified Joy seemed to be around him. Her mother had had a black eye for two weeks after their meeting and she hadn’t seen him since, that was the last time they’d interacted. Her mother was a perfectly good parent and Jillian’s little heart had never ached for a father.

 

He greets her at the door with a gruff handshake and looks at her overalls with distaste. He scratches at his stomach through a stained t-shirt and gestures for her to follow him. Jillian’s nose scrunches at the foul smell of his apartment, eyeing the stacks of newspapers and beer bottles. He leads her down a hallway with fist-sized dents in the walls to a door on the end. He opens it and throws one arm up as if to say _ta-da!_ Chris returns to the living room dump.

 

The room is small and bare. All there is in the room is a thin twin mattress on a steel frame and a battered dresser standing off to one side. Jillian walks to the window and pulls back the curtain, shaking dust out from between the folds. The window has iron bars on the outside and all she can see is a dirty alleyway between their building and the next. There’s a scrawny stray dog picking at garbage and pigeons hobbling around aimlessly. She swallows hard and forces herself to look away.

 

She feels numb taking out what few possessions she has and placing them throughout the room. She couldn't go back to the townhouse again, all she saw when she blinked was Joy clutching and choking and shaking and dying. The coroner had said it was a heart attack, likely due to stress and overexertion from her three jobs. Jillian hadn’t even known about her mother’s night shifts at the gas station. She’d stuffed all her belongings into one army green duffel bag and her school backpack in fifteen minutes before sprinting out the door.

 

She hadn’t looked back.

 

Suddenly it’s too much- the walls are too white and the bars are too big and the air is too thick and Jillian’s chest fills with dread and fear. She sits heavily on the bed with a loud creak and starts to hyperventilate, tears wet her cheeks and her hands are shaking again and Jillian _aches_ for a hug, a smile from her mom, something to let her know that it’ll be okay. Her heartbeat thuds in her ears and she squeezes her eyes tight, waiting for the surge of emotions to end. Jillian flings her own arms around her and falls onto the mattress curled up into a ball.

 

One of her trembling hands comes up to the side of her neck and she rubs hard lines back and forth against the skin with the palm of her hand until it’s red and stinging. At the end of one of her swipes her fingertips brush the chain she scooped off of the carpet next to the vomit stain.

 

She fumbles her mother’s necklace between her forefinger and thumb and instantly feels more at ease. Her lungs fill to the fullest when she inhales through her nose and holds her breath before exhaling slowly.

 

_I will never stop loving you, babygirl._

 

_Don’t let this world change you._

 

_You’re so beautiful, Jillian._

 

_You’ve got nothin’ to be sorry for._

 

_I love you, Jilly-bean._

 

Jillian falls asleep on her bare mattress with her boots still on and fingers clutched around the chain on her neck.

 

* * *

 

Holtzmann bobs and sways to the 80’s pop playing way too loudly in her headphones. She mouths the words energetically into the handle of a screwdriver and twirls it like a baton into the air before reaching to catch it and actually tighten a screw on her latest baby. It’s a smaller, more portable containment unit (well it’s going to be) that she’s been working on for a few days now- she’s hoping to make one for everyone on the team so that if they’re ever alone or split up on a bust they’ll be able to contain up to a T3 apparition while help arrives. Of course she also has to recalibrate and fortify the proton packs to accommodate the new equipment and hopefully increase the stream power without compromising size or weight, but she has no doubt in her mind that it’s possible. It’ll just take some tinkering, is all.

 

Holtz reconsiders the cup of coffee she’s about to brew when she goes down to the kitchen and sees the stove clock glare _05:52am_ in neon green. She mumbles and hums, gloved hands on her hips and foot tapping against the floor. She settles for some green tea with some sugar dumped in for fun and clinks a spoon noisily against the glass while stirring. She jumps onto the counter and swings her legs a bit while sipping, deciding to _savour_ it, as Abby had suggested she try once and awhile after watching her eat a slice of pizza in two large bites.

 

The fire hall is quiet, save for some pipes creaking, the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional car driving past outside. A light breeze make the wooden wind chimes that Patty put up above the kitchen window clunk and bump against each other happily. Holtzmann feels very zen, very relaxed for her erratic and outlandish standards.

 

Quiet shuffling from above draws her attention to the corner of the room where Erin blearily ambles down the spiral staircase. She’s wearing sweatpants and her MIT sweater and, “ _good lord_ are those actual real life bunny slippers?” Holtz thinks to herself. As Erin comes closer it is confirmed that yes, Dr. Erin Gilbert is wearing fuzzy bunny slippers. She clearly hasn’t seen Holtz, she doesn’t say anything or offer a gesture of greeting as she drags herself to get her running shoes from the box of shoes and then shuffle toward the couch and sink into it.

 

Erin’s shoulders sag and she groans before craning her neck to the ceiling with closed eyes.

 

“Why did I want to do this, what am I doing here,” she whines as she slumps against the couch cushions. Erin groans and Holtz bites back a laugh.

 

“‘ _Do it before work, Erin’_ , I mean, _really_...” she says mockingly to herself.

 

Erin lets out a puff of air before stomping her feet repeatedly against the carpet like a mini-tantrum, still not opening her eyes. Holtz is silent when she slides off of the counter and creeps in mismatched sock feet to the back of the couch. Watching for any sign that Erin might move or open her eyes she leans over her face until their noses are almost touching and grins like a cheshire cat.

 

“Boo.”

 

Erin’s eyes flash wide open with a loud yelp and her forehead smashes against Holtz’s nose but Holtz is belly laughing with tears in her eyes as Erin rubs at her forehead.

 

“Holtz! What the hell! What are you doing here?!”

 

Holtz finally stops laughing and stands up straight, still grinning like mad with one hand on her belly.

 

“I could ask you the same question, Erin.”

 

Erin’s cheeks turn pink and she averts her eyes to the carpeting and crosses her arms.

 

“I was going to, I was going out for a run- well I was considering it.”

 

Holtz raises an eyebrow.

 

“Considering it lightly. I hate getting up early but my day is too busy... otherwise,” Erin trails off and rubs one of her own biceps.

 

Holtz turns around and re-enters the kitchen to start brewing coffee for Erin.

 

“Why running?”

 

“Like why am I running specifically or why running instead of something else?”

 

“Both, I guess.”

 

“I used to run a little in college. When things would get _crazy_ ,” Erin swirls her arms in front of her before recrossing them, “I would go out and run around my dorms. You don’t need any equipment, either. I was never any good but I find it’s a good relief... a good, um, stress relief? Yeah. Well really relief from anything, like homework or crushes or homesickness, running helps.”

 

Holtz pauses, before turning to look at Erin.

 

“You’ve been feeling stressed?”

 

Erin’s still looking at the floor, “well I mean yeah, a little. You know, with the busting and the press and the _mayor_ now and I’ve just had a lot of things, someone- _stuff_... on my mind...”

 

Holtz can see Erin scolding herself out of the corner of her eye for talking too much but decides to play coy; Erin is cute when she’s tired, and she’s doubly cute when she keeps talking about whoever she may or may not have a crush on. Holtz hopes it’s her, but not too seriously. She’s done the ‘fall for a straight friend’ thing before and isn’t keen to do it again.

 

“Me too, I haven’t been stressed per se but I have to do a lot of crazy stuff with the proton packs and I’m trying like, really hard to not blow up the lab with a _big_ poof,” she says pouring milk into Erin’s _Think Like A Proton & Stay Positive! _mug and smiling back at her friend, “but it’s hard when I really need to test the contain-”

 

“Holtz!” Holtz startles and looks Erin in the eyes.

 

“Erin!” she flounders and bites her lips, hand still grasping a raised milk carton on it’s way back into the fridge, “what’s up?”

 

“You’re bleeding!” Erin waves a pointed finger at Holtz’s face.

 

“Whaaaat? Where?”

 

“Your nose is bleeding, oh my god Holtz!” Erin rushes over to Holtz in the kitchen and grabs a paper towel and presses it into her palm.

 

“Huh. I guess you bonked me pretty good, huh?”

 

“This isn’t the time for jokes, Holtz.”

 

“Erin, babe, it’s a nosebleed, I’m sure I’ll live. I’ve suffered much worse and lived to tell the tale.”

 

Holtz watches Erin’s cheeks flush at the casual pet name but resumes her attempts at helping the situation quickly.

 

“J-just put the paper towel against your nose, please. Don’t press too hard! Let’s go to your room? I know for a fact you didn’t get up early, you just didn’t sleep, which isn’t healthy and we’ve all told you-”

  
“That’s a little forward, Gilbert, don’t you think? Inviting yourself into my bedroom?” Erin flushes again but still tugs Holtz by the elbow up the stairs to the top floor. Holtz grins the whole way there and throws Erin her signature wink when she gets to her room for the morning. She loves making Erin blush, especially sleepy and caring Erin.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've decided to make my chapters way longer so that this doesn't accidentally become a 20+ chapter fic, which is why this chapter is basically as long as all of the other ones combined!

 

Jillian’s father decides that Jillian has to switch schools when he finds out that she can’t take the school bus now that she’s on the outskirts of town, absolutely refusing to drive her forty minutes to and from class every day. She tells him that she’s perfectly happy to take public transit or a bike to school and flashes a hopeful smile. When his face only hardens at her from across the rickety dinner table she starts to fold in on herself.

 

“The decision is final. City buses are expensive and a bike will just get stolen.”

 

“But-”

 

“I said no.”

 

“I can just-”

 

He slams his hand flat against the table and Jillian jumps in her seat. He curls it into a fist and she remembers in the purple of her mother’s eye.

“It. Is. _Final._ ** _I_** make the calls while you’re under my roof. Got it?”

 

She wrings her hands under the table and stares at the scuffed tabletop, her curls bounce in front of her eyes with a furious nod.

 

“Okay. Do you need anything for school?”

 

_Maybe some clothes, and a new toolkit, and toiletries, pencils, pads of paper._

 

“No, I have my old stuff.”

 

“Good.”

 

An awkward silence falls over the two. Jillian isn’t sure if she needs permission to get up from the table or not so she sits and picks at her fingernails. He looks at her over his newspaper with an impatient glare that makes Jillian’s throat jump.

 

“Anything else?”

 

“N-no, uh, I’ll go to my room, then.”

 

“Good.”

 

Jillian gets up so fast she nearly knocks the chair over as she makes a beeline for her room. Once inside she gently closes the door behind her and exhales. There’s nothing for her to do here, she doesn’t have anything she can take apart or any books about machines or any television to watch and she’s feeling restless. She starts to pace across the room, from the door to the side of her bed and back, over and over again. Eventually she flops onto her squeaky mattress and falls into a fitful sleep.

 

Jillian hates her new school but she stays there as late as she can every night to avoid going back to her father’s house. She feels relaxed in the school lab, even if it’s tiny compared to the one in her old school. Jillian tinkers with the parts that she finds in the trash and other pieces of metal, welding and screwing and hammering until she forgets why she’s distracting herself. She’s bored- making and unmaking things can only do so much. She goes through the motions over and over on autopilot just to keep herself busy and out of the house. At the end of the night, however, she still has to walk back to his apartment. She could take the bus but she doesn’t want to waste what little money she has and walking means she takes even more time getting back. She refuses to call it home. Home is dino nuggets and a whirring VCR machine and scorched carpet. Not white walls and barred windows and countless empty beer bottles.

 

As she bundles up to start her walk across the city her new science teacher waves her over, “Jillian!”

 

“I didn’t do it!” she whirls around, hastily stuffing her tools into her bag.

 

“Didn’t do what?”

 

“Oh, um... nothing? Yes?”

 

Her teacher grins and pulls a crumpled paper out of his bag, “Thought you might be interested in this, since you’ve basically moved in here these last few weeks.”

 

Jillian smooths the crinkled paper and reads in big lettering _ANNUAL END OF YEAR SCIENCE FAIR, ALL ARE WELCOME! FEATURING 5 JUDGES FROM UMN. CASH PRIZES!_

 

Her eyes light up and she practically starts vibrating, “Oh man oh _man,_ is this for real?!”

 

After asking four times she’s finally convinced that yes, this is really happening, she can make whatever she wants and judges will come look at it, _real_ judges from the University upstate. She starts planning right away. What should she make? Something impressive, obviously, but not too flashy, and something she can make without raw materials.

 

* * *

 

Jillian swears loudly and chucks her wrench against the wall, it’s not _working,_ why isn’t it working like it’s supposed to, she’s balanced the equations over and over again and the design is flawless but it’s still not _working._ Jillian has spent two weeks in the lab bent over a workbench trying to solve her problem. She pulls her hair out of her face to stare at her blueprint, exhaling sharply out of her nose. She hasn’t seen her dad in five days and she’s starting to run out of food. Why does he spend so much of his paycheck on booze when she’s forced to eat lunch meat for dinner when he’s away and why does he hate her so much and why didn’t her mom make better plans for her?

 

Jillian yells, her hands claw at the paper and crumble it into a ball before she sweeps her arms over the table and pushes everything onto the floor. She can feel her heart hammering in her chest. Her thighs hit the lab stool heavily as she sinks back onto the stool and drops her chin to her chest. _Breathe, Jillian._ Her lungs fill with air slowly, she exhales and inhales until she calms down.

 

Her stomach rumbles, reminding her that she hasn’t eaten anything since her breakfast of saltines and jam. She puts her forehead against the desk and sighs before slumping off of the stool and kneeling to clean up the mess she made.

 

Picking up the carcass of her machine, she feels ridiculous for thinking this broken hunk of scrap would work. Her fist clenches and the metal bends under her fingers, she wants to crush it. She wants her machine to feel how she feels. Bent and broken and twisted up and _bad_. Her teeth grind hard enough that they squeak and she can feel herself starting to cry, feels her eyes watering but she still squeezes harder and suddenly she feels a bolt of pain on her forearm and numbness in her fingers. She drops the hunk of bent metal with a gasp and opens her palm to see red. Her left pointer finger traces the jagged cuts in her fingers and palm, blood smearing slightly- she bites her lip.

 

Her finger leaves a red streak as she runs it up her wrist and onto a longer cut made by a stray shard. She applies pressure and hisses when it stings against her fingertip. Angling her fingertip so that her nail runs parallel to the cut, she digs into her open wound. It stings more than it did before and something twists low in Jillian’s stomach. She wipes her bloody hand on her ripped jeans and stands back up, leaving everything on the floor when she leaves the classroom.

 

On her walk she realizes that it’ll work, probably, but she just doesn’t have what she needs- better materials, better tools. She’s tried looking in dumpsters and alleys for parts but she knows deep down she’ll have to buy them from the hardware store. She needs money, plain and simple. She considers selling some of her things but she doesn’t have anything remotely valuable and she wouldn’t dare selling any of her father’s things. Her stomach turns to ice at the thought of asking him for money.

 

The apartment is still deserted and littered with empties and trash when she gets back. Jillian opens the fridge to the sight of an opened package of lunch meat, jam, and butter. She sighs before pulling them out and starting to make her dinner. While she eats she’s struck with an idea and hastily crams her food into her mouth before going to find her duffel bag.

 

“Why didn’t I think of this before, I’m literally surrounded by money!”

 

When she gets back from the liquor store she’s made a neat profit of 8 dollars and 60 cents, thanks to the load of empties she’d returned. For the first time in a month Jillian hopes her father comes back so he’ll leave more empties for her to turn in.

 

After a few more weeks of collecting and scrounging, her new and improved machine is admittedly pretty wonky looking and a crooked but it works exactly as it should. Jillian stands in front of her creation proudly when the judges come around with their clipboards.

 

“And what have you made, miss? An ant farm of some sort?” A balding man says with a patronizing smile.

 

“Hah!” Jillian barks a laugh, “I’ve got nothing against entomologists but that’s not really my style. I do like bugs though, all those little legs and wings and spindly things. Really neat stuff. No, this is a matter containment field, sirs.”

 

The judges eyes stop mid-roll and start to bulge.

 

“Wh- what do you mean?”

 

“It contains matter. I mean, _everything_ contains matter if you know what I mean, but my device suspends it and-”

 

“No, I mean- I know what a matter containment field is, miss. I meant, how did you make it? You’re only in grade-” he checks his clipboard, “twelve? My grad school students are still struggling with these concepts.”

 

“I’m only in grade eleven, sir.”

 

“Jesus,” he breathes, “you’re seventeen and you’ve engineered a homemade matter containment field?”

 

“I’m actually fifteen, I’ve skipped a couple grades. It probably says I’m in grade twelve because I’m taking all highest level the AP courses, but I’m still technically in grade eleven.”

 

The judges are speechless and Jillian starts to squirm with excitement.

 

“So do you wanna know how I made it?”

 

 

When Jillian leaves the science fair later that day she’s carrying her invention, a blue first place ribbon, a one hundred dollar cheque and pamphlet full of business cards and phone numbers. The next day at school her teacher hands her a wad of envelopes from Universities across the country. _Come study at Berkeley! Explore engineering with us at the University of Illinois!_ After a few days, other letters appeared for her at her apartment. _Study abroad at University of Toronto! Experience specialized programs catered to you at MIT!_

 

Apparently when a fifteen year old from Minnesota makes a matter containment field out of  scrap, news travel fast.

 

Jillian sits cross legged on her bed reading over Stanford’s pamphlet when she hears the front door slam closed and heavy footsteps in the hall. A weight settles in her stomach and she stops moving, as if he can hear her.

 

“Come here!” he yells from the kitchen. Jillian swallows and hastily crams her stuff into her backpack before tiptoeing to the kitchen and avoiding eye contact.

 

“Yeah?”

 

He leans into the open refrigerator with downturned eyebrows and hunched shoulders. He sways a little where he stands and can’t seem to keep his eyes focused.

 

“What’s there to eat?”

 

She can smell alcohol on his breath from across the room. Jillian keeps her eyes trained on his back and tries to put some distance between them in the cramped space.

 

“Uh, not much. There’s some bread I think.”

 

“Great,” he says, “fuckin’ A,” he turns to face her rises to his full height, “what the fuck have you been doing? Why isn’t there any food?”

 

“I don’t have any money,” Jillian can feel fear climbing up her spine. She’s saving her prize money for her next invention.

 

“What, so- so you want money from me now, is that it? I give you a bed, a room, a roof to live under, and you want _more?_ ”

 

“No, I don’t want money!”

 

“Don’t raise your voice at me!”

 

Jillian scratches at a scab on her arm.

 

“I’m not, I don’t mean to- I’m sorry.”

 

“That’s right, because this is _my_ house and _my_ rules!” he’s practically screaming and Jillian’s throat is starting to twitch. He lumbers toward her and she stumbles backwards into a wall, her heart is racing and her hands are sweating.

 

“Why the fuck are you even here, huh? Who said I wanted to take care of some weird little shit? Now you’re in my _house_ ,” Jillian is frozen with fear as he slams a hand onto the wall beside her head, “because I fucked that bitch once.”

 

He’s still too close to her face and his biceps are twitching, she can feel tears welling in her eyes and she just wants curl up and cry. Something changes in his face and he starts to sneer.

 

“Aw, do you miss your Mommy?”

 

He screws up his face and pretends to blubber like a baby. Anger starts to brew in her chest and she flexes her fist, sets her jaw. Silent tears stream down her face and he pins her to the wall with his forearm against her throat.

 

“Let me tell you something, alright kid? She was a weirdo, just like you, oh yeah. I guess she turned to the streets to pick up some cash,” Jillian claws at his arms for breath but he slams her back into the wall and yells right against her face, “but she had great tits and a pretty mouth so I picked her up from the bar and fucked her in the backseat of my car for fifty bucks. Never thought anything would come out of it but here we are, eh?”

 

“Don’t- don’t talk about her, you didn’t even know her!” Jillian coughs out despite the pressure against her throat.

 

“She was a whore! That’s all she was!”

 

“Shut up!” Jillian swings her fist blindly and catches him right on the nose.

 

He drops her to the floor and whirls a palm to his face, he doubles over and cups his nose. When he pulls his hand away it’s covered in blood and spit. Jillian watches from where she landed on the floor. He whips his head up and stares her straight in the eyes, blood pouring from his mouth.

 

“What the fuck? Did you just fucking hit me, you piece of shit?”

 

Jillian’s vibrating she’s so furious, “You never buy any food and you’re always drunk, you don’t give a shit about anything!’ she pants, “ _you’re the fucking piece of shit!”_

 

“ _What did you just say to me?!”_ he roars.

 

“You’re a piece of shit!” Jillian screams at the top of her lungs.

 

He rushes her, wrenches his hands into the collar of her shirt and lifts her up off of her feet. Jillian feels a crack in her ribs when he throws her against the wall again, only to put a hand flat against her sternum with crushing force. All the air rushes out of her lungs when his enormous fist collides with her side once, then again. She crumples in half gasping for air and he pushes her onto the floor. He kicks her in the gut and Jillian groans.

 

“You’re a worthless bitch, just like your mother,” he grunts with another kick.

 

“You’re a fuckup, you’ll never amount to anything.”

 

Jillian tries to swat at his arms when he sets a knee on either side of her hips and pins her tiny body to the ground, she can feel her tailbone crunching against the hard floor.

 

“You’re _weird_ , nobody will _ever_ want your sorry ass,” he grunts into her ear. Her legs are twisted at odd angles beneath him and when he rolls back she feels the tendons in her knee stretch, shrieks when he applies more weight and something in one knee snaps. Jillian throat starts to go hoarse from screaming. His palms go to her neck and suddenly she can’t breathe, she’s not making any more noise, he’s squeezing the air out of her throat. His thumb presses painfully against the underside of her jaw.

 

“Shut the FUCK UP!”

 

He brings one hand back and hurls a punch at her face that lands right on her nose with a sharp, blinding snap. His fist collides with her cheekbone and Jillian shrieks at the searing pain, trying desperately to squirm and kick beneath him. Tears are streaming down her face and she can’t feel her legs anymore- he lands one last punch to the side of her head before wiping his mouth on the back of his forearm and staring down at her. She bawls out another cry when he rolls back onto her legs before he gets off of her.

 

Her head is pounding and she sees four of his steel toed boots next to her face on the hardwood. Everything is swimming in front of her, everything is spinning. Jillian coughs a breath as he lands a kick into her gut.

 

“Get the fuck out,” he pants, “and don’t come back.”

 

He turns and stumbles down the hall and into the living room, the sofa creaking as he sits on it. Jillian heaves a shuddering breath into her lungs and turns onto her side, retching onto the floor. Her head spins when she brings herself to her feet. She takes a step and collapses back onto the ground with a yelp when her knee pops and gives out beneath her. Her scabby hands hurt when she crawls to her room and pulls herself onto her bed, shoving all her essentials into her bag. Everything is foggy, her depth perception is off and she keeps grabbing at things only to lean forward and fall. She shakes her head to try and clear her mind but all that happens is the pressure behind her eyes builds. Her eyelids are heavy and all she wants to do is lie down and sleep but she has to leave, she has to get away from here. She forces her eyes wide open and channels all her energy into packing.

 

With her duffel bag and backpack dragging on the floor behind her she hugs the wall and  limps toward the door. She shoves her feet into her combat boots without doing them up and she slams the door behind her. She pulls her hood up around her head and walks as far as she can manage before she starts cry again. She brings the sleeve of her jacket to wipe away her tears and she hisses as she wipes what’s sure to be a black eye.

 

Jillian hobbles into an alleyway and crumbles onto a stack of cardboard, body screaming in pain at the rough contact. Shuffling her backpack under her head, Jillian curls into a ball and starts to sob. Her nose has swelled shut and her ribs squeeze painfully with every breath. Jillian threads her hand up to her neck and fumbles her necklace between her fingers, squeezing her eyes shut.

 

* * *

 

_“Holtz, it’s getting pretty nasty out there...” Erin trails off as she fidgets with her collar._

 

_“I’m sure it’s no big, I’ve been in the snow before.”_

 

_“I dunno, the roads look really bad. Come and look.”_

 

_Holtz stops packing all her things into her bag and crosses Erin’s living room in four giant strides. Placing her chin on Erin’s shoulder, she leans her head against Erin’s and looks out the window- not without missing the small inhale Erin takes when their heads bump._

 

_A thick blanket of snow has covered her street, a dark sky promising plenty more to come. The snow looks deep enough to come up past Holtz’s combat boots and to her knees. Wind blusters against Erin’s window and rattles the window frame. Holtz’s confidence drains at the thought of being out in the streets in the cold, she draws her lower lip between her teeth. Erin coughs beside her and Holtz turns her head to look at her._

 

_“You could, uh... you could stay the night here, if you want.”_

 

_Holtz opens her mouth to object but Erin cuts her off, “I mean, clearly you can’t catch a cab in that snow at this hour, and the subway probably isn’t running to where you live. I even have a pullout couch.”_

 

_“Erin you don’t even know where I live.”_

 

_“Maybe not, but I’m assuming it’s not downtown.”_

 

_Holtz bites back a grin, “If you’re okay with that, then yeah I’d stay here. Casa Gilbert is cozier than it is out there.”_

 

_Erin smiles a cute little smile and steps back._

 

_“Alright, I’ll go set it up! Do you wanna watch a movie or something? I know it’s late but all we’ve been doing is working on those laylines and I feel a bit like just,” Erin extends her hands, “hanging out.”_

 

_A wild grin erupts on Holtz’s face and her eyes light up, “So, a slumber party is what you’re suggesting?”_

 

_Erin reddens a shade but nods nonetheless, “Uh, yeah, I guess that’s about right.”_

 

_“Booyah! I’ll make some popcorn, you set up the couch-bed thingy.”_

 

After setting everything up and getting all comfy, they both fell asleep before the opening credits of the movie had even finished.

 

Holtz opens her eyes blearily as the sun shines into the windows. Where the hell was she? _Mint curtains, mint walls, was she in the hospital again? Oh no, not the hospital. Abby would be so disappointed in her, especially after last time._

 

A body rustles behind her and Holtz is suddenly much more aware of her surroundings. A slim arm is wound around her middle and she can feel a cool nose against the back of her neck, little puffs of air tickle the hairs at the nape of her neck. Holtz is frozen in place, she stops breathing and tries to figure out what the appropriate course of action is.

 

 _Do I wake her up? Do I have to pretend I’m not like,_ _really_ _enjoying this? Should I pretend to be asleep until she wakes up and see what she does? Oh my god she’s so cute when she sleeps, Jesus Christ. What’s the protocol for when your maybe-not-straight coworker/friend is sleep-spooning you-_

 

Erin’s warm palm flattens against her stomach where her shirt had ridden up and Holtz sucks in a breath of air. Fingers snake beneath her shirt and rest between her ribs, dangerously close to the band of her bra. Worry creeps up her throat as she wonders if Erin can feel the raised lines on her stomach.

 

“Mmnn...so soft...” Erin hums against her back. Holtz lets out a tiny whimper when Erin starts rubbing slow circles on her skin.

 

_If this is how I die I am 100% fine with it, thank you God._

 

“Gilbert,” Holtz whispers. Erin’s hand doesn’t stop but she doesn’t respond.

 

“Erin.” Holtz raises her voice above a whisper and she feels Erin jolt awake behind her.

 

Erin rips her hand away from Holtz’s skin and scrambles to the other side of the bed, leaving cool skin in her wake. Holtz sits cross legged against the arm of the pull out couch and looks at Erin who’s sitting on her knees and covering her face with both hands. She’s grateful Erin can’t see the hurt flash across her face.

 

“I am so sorry.”

 

Holtz clears her throat lightly and scratches at the back of her neck, palm flat and warm against her neck.

 

“It’s uh- It’s okay. I don’t mind a little spoonin’.”

 

Erin brings her hands down to only cover her mouth and looks at her knees. She’s gone hilariously red and Holtz fights a giggle.

 

“I don’t know what I was doing-”

 

“You were spooning me, and _loving_ it.” jokes Holtz.

 

“No, I mean- yes I was spooning you and _yes_...” she looks up at Holtz and trails off.

 

“...yes?”

 

“Sorry I’ve just... I’ve never seen your hair down before.”

 

Holtz blushes a little and pulls her eyes away from Erin’s. She runs both hands through her hair and tousles it in front of her face before flipping it back. She smiles weakly and picks absently at a stray thread on the blanket, deliberately avoiding Erin’s gaze.

 

“Well, there it is... ta-da...”

 

Holtz feels the bed sink and creak and looks up to see Erin’s face much closer than she had anticipated, still on her knees but very much in her personal space. She reaches out and almost touches a curl before flicking her eyes to Holtz’s. She nods a little and Erin touches a strand. Her touch is featherlight and cautious as she twirls her hair between her fingers. Erin’s eyes wander around all of Holtz’s errant curls and she smiles.

 

“I always assumed it was just short, I didn’t even consider that it was an updo.”

 

Holtz watches Erin’s face, traces the lines of her smile and the curves in her nose.

 

“It’s so beautiful.” Erin whispers.

 

“So are you.”

 

Erin is taken aback and looks back to Holtz’s eyes. She hadn’t exactly meant to say that out loud, but Erin doesn’t seem as stressed out as she was before.

 

Erin chews on her bottom lip and Holtz openly watches her mouth. She releases her lip and it goes a brighter pink than before- Holtz licks her own lip at the sight. Erin leans in slowly, eyes darting back and forth between Holtz’s mouth and her eyes, asking if this is okay. Holtz nods again and lets her eyes fall shut. She can feel the warmth of Erin's face radiating off of her, the soft smell of her sleep-laden clothes.

She feels the barest graze of Erin’s lips against her own before Erin’s doorbell rings. Holtz feels a rush of cool air and opens her eyes to see Erin darting out of the room to answer the door. She hears the door open to Abby and Patty talking to Erin about the weather. Holtz exhales and tries to not be mad at her friends.

 

“We thought we might as well spend this snow day together unwinding- man was it a trek to get here though! The streets are completely empty!” says Abby in the foyer.

  
By the time Erin reenters the room Holtz’s hair is tied back behind her head and she’s sitting in the windowsill looking out at the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sry


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sry again i s2g this is all necessary

Jillian loses about twenty pounds over the first summer that she lives on the streets. By the time September rolls around, she’s a little over 5 feet and just about one hundred pounds. She starts her grade twelve year hoping that if she keeps her grades up she might get a scholarship somewhere far away and finally get out of this town. She pats her backpack where her MIT pamphlet is tucked safely in the back pocket before kicking the ground and skateboarding toward her school. She’s moved around a bit over the summer, testing out different sides of the city and how they fare for her needs. Currently she’s in a little cardboard hut in the back end of an alleyway downtown, about a twenty minute ride from her school and a forty minute ride to the dump.

 

Jillian used her science fair prize money during the summer to buy a broken walkman (easily repaired with some new wiring) a skateboard and socks. She figured that a walkman would help pass the time while she worked and a skateboard would mean she could go farther, faster. The socks were just really cool and besides, when would she not need socks?

 

The only meal Jillian can ever fully depend on is lunch from the school cafeteria- no matter how small and underwhelming it is she’ll always eat the whole thing. Finding good food on the streets isn’t a regular occurrence and getting money to buy food isn’t any easier. After two weeks of careful observation of the students in the cafeteria she starts sitting closer and closer to one of the red garbage bins, watching classmate after classmate throw away perfectly good food- sometimes whole untouched meals. Her stomach whines painfully while she debates sinking low enough to rifle through the trash for food.

 

When the cacophony of students dwindles to a lull and the cafeteria is nearly empty Jillian inhales deeply, rolls up her sleeves and digs around the bin for whatever she can grab in the five minutes before her next class. She feels revolting doing it but the food she finds makes her smile for the first time in days as she stuffs her pockets; two whole wheat buns, a handful of semi-crushed tater tots, an apple with only two bites taken out of it and half an orange. It’ll be enough to last her a few days, if not longer. Self-loathing and embarrassment replace the hunger in her stomach when she devours the apple in the lab. 

 

After the first few weeks of school Jillian starts to fall into a routine.

 

6:30am : wake up and make sure nothing’s been stolen, stash it away for the day.

6:40am : feed Archie.

7:30am : leave for school. 

8:00am : start school.

3:40 : work in the lab until everyone has left.

8:00pm : use the locker room showers while they’re empty.

9:00pm : get back to the hut, feed Archie again.

9:00-11:00pm : do homework- if none then scrounge for parts/money/food/etc.

 

Lather, rinse & repeat.

 

She’s extra thankful for the socks she bought when she wakes up shivering on a wintry January morning. It’s pitch black out and the city is still asleep, save for the ever present low rumblings as the downtown core continues to breathe around her. She pulls her hand out of where it’s curled deep in her pocket and exposes her wrist to press her nose to a button on the small watch she found in a dumpster a few months back. 04:43 blinks in a soft green. Groaning she tucks her folded hands under her head and wishes desperately for more sleep. Now that she’s awake she notices how cold her face feels in the open air despite the cardboard walls she’s constructed. Jillian burrows her face further into the collar of her jacket and tries to shift more into a homemade sleeping bag. It’s comprised of two rugs and a handful of empty garbage bags inside of her duffel bag- not pretty, but it keeps the heat in decently enough. A disgruntled meow is muffled by the duffel bag and Jillian shifts until she can feel soft purring against her belly.

 

“Sorry Arch,” she whispers as she looks out into the snow-laden alley. Fear and uncertainty wash over her as snow blusters into her hut, “It’s getting really cold at night now.”

 

It’s too cold for Jillian to get back to sleep, she can see her breath in little huffs and she wants her teeth to stop chattering. She bites down on her bottom lip and squeezes her eyes shut until the taste of iron floods her mouth. She whimpers but continues grinding and gnashing her teeth into her flesh, relishing being able to feel something other than tired and freezing. Inside the duffel bag she picks at the skin of her wrist, rolling and pinching and pulling to keep her mind off of the bitter cold until morning. 

 

It’s a Saturday, Jillian’s least favourite day. No school on Saturday means no warm buildings to defrost in, no time in the lab, no showers... and no lunch. The only thing that makes Sunday better than Saturday is the free soup that the church around the corner offers if she pretends to be Catholic and talks nice with the church ladies. The only things she can do on Saturdays is scavenge around for parts to sell (or use) and beg on the street. The sky starts to lighten up as the sun begins to rise beyond the skyscrapers around her and Jillian sighs before starting her morning routine.

 

Archimedes mewls softly as Jillian scoots him to one side of the sleeping bag before shoving the rest of her belongings into it, at least the ones that she doesn’t want to keep in her backpack with her. Her large toolkit, a half finished solar powered stove, skateboard and schoolbooks stay right here with Archie. All that she throws into her backpack is a pair of wire cutters, a screwdriver, a folded up piece of cardboard, an empty coffee cup and a few plastic bags. She stretches another plastic bag over each socked foot before shoving them into her combat boots and tying the laces up tight- she’s learned the hard way that the day only gets worse if her feet get wet and freeze in her boots.

 

“Sorry bud, you’re gonna have to find breakfast on your own today,” Jillian says sadly, kneeling beside the duffel bag and stroking the alley cat’s coarse fur. He meows a few times and nudges her hand open to look for the food Jillian usually gives him in the morning. She swallows hard and sniffs a few times before giving him a big kiss to the forehead.

 

“I’ll try to find you something, you just gotta...just- be patient,” she exhales deeply and feels her stomach growl before mumbling, “I’m hungry too.”

 

With one last check that she has everything she might need Jillian pulls her hands up into the sleeves of her jacket and shoves them deep into her pockets, burrows her face into her collar and heads out. A trail of deep footprints follows her to the mouth of the alley before she turns around and catches them out of the corner of her eye. Scolding herself for not noticing earlier she retraces her steps and uses a stray piece of cardboard to clear away her footprints behind her. All things considered this sheltered alleyway is one of the best spots in the city and she does not need someone investigating her prints. She presses her back to the wall of one of the buildings before peeking out and checking if the coast is clear. She likes to be sure that nobody will see her when she exits the alleyway to minimize the chances of someone asking her invasive questions and prying to see if she’s alright. Confident that she won’t be spotted Jillian rounds the corner and glues her eyes to the pavement as she walks. 

 

By now she’s memorized the layout of the city so well that she doesn’t need to look up to know where she’s going. If she’s going to school it’s a right from the alley, three blocks up, six blocks west, another four blocks north and a left at the path that cuts through to the back of the field. The shortest walk is to the church on Sundays- that’s just a right from the alley, two blocks north and one block east, easy peasy. Her longest journey is by far the way to the dump; a left from the alley, nine blocks south, four blocks east, another five blocks south then she follows the dirt road southeast until she gets to the Jillian-sized hole cut in the fence hidden behind some bushes, marked by a scrap of red fabric tied to a branch. Jillian knows which bridges sometimes have auto parts under them, which streets to avoid after dark, where all the breaks in the fences are, which dumpsters might have discarded food in them, the best spots to beg if you need cash.

 

Jillian knows what it feels like to not eat for days on end, how to forge a signature, how to keep deodorant from freezing solid. She knows which grocery stores throw out their old bread and exactly what time she can shower at school so nobody will see her. 

 

She’s forgotten what it’s like to fall asleep without shivering or when she last had a pillow under her head, Jillian doesn’t remember what a hug feels like or how grapes taste when they’re fresh. She doesn’t remember being warm, being full, or being loved. 

 

A gust of wind causes her to sway on her feet and screw her eyes shut. Her shoulders are tight against her neck and she takes her fingers out of her pockets to see what colour they are- an angry pink. Flexing her fists a few times before cramming her hands back into her pockets she grumbles and kicks at the snow, she’s barely halfway to the Starbucks on Main street and her fingers are already turning pink. She grunts and she can see her breath in a hot cloud before it disappears into thin air. Jillian trudges through the snow and tries to ignore how much her ears sting in the wind. 

 

Hoards of people pass her by but nobody seems to notice the blonde sitting cross legged on the sidewalk. Jillian is struck with an idea and digs through the contents of her backpack. Numb fingers wrap around the familiar shape and she sighs in relief when she pulls out a thick black sharpie. Within seconds she’s torn a bit of her cardboard seat off and positioned the felt tip over the surface. She hesitates for a minute, debating what to say before deciding to keep it simple.

 

COLD + HUNGRY, PLEASE HELP! THANK YOU!

 

Jillian draws a goofy happy face in one corner before capping the marker and stashing it back in her bag.

 

It takes an hour of sitting outside of the Starbucks before she hears the clink of change. She’d almost given up hope, head nodding to one side before the metallic sound brought her out of her daze.

 

“T-thank you so much, ma’am!” Jillian calls out after the woman who hadn’t even slowed down to drop the coins into her cup.

 

After another thirty minutes of shivering Jillian decides to curl up in a ball on her side to preserve some body heat. Jillian closes her eyes and tries to keep her shaking to a minimum. She weaves her hands together in her sleeves and scratches at her forearms with jagged and bitten fingernails as a distraction. She can feel the top layer of her skin starting to sting and give way. She hears the clatter of coins in her cup but she’s too wrapped up in her head to thank them. Cold wind is still blowing at her ankles and racing down her spine so she adds more pressure, grits her teeth as she presses harder and harder into her skin, she’s sick of the snow and her chest whines with pain from only sucking in icy air and she’s so cold. She wishes she had enough change to buy a warm drink from the coffee shop but she needs to save her money for real food, it wouldn’t be worth it to spend four dollars on a hot chocolate when that four dollars could be dinner for a week. Jillian keeps scratching until her breathing calms and her arms feel numb, fingers tired and stiff.

 

She’s not sure how much time has passed when she stops scratching herself but she’s sure that if she were to pull her hands away and take a look there’d be blood smeared on her fingertips.

 

A thunk draws her back into the real world and she opens her eyes to the sight of a man’s gloved hand putting a handful of change in her cup. Jillian raises her head off of the cardboard to say thank you, scrambling to get up. The inside of her jacket chafes her inner arm and it stings but she ignores it before clearing her throat. With just a quick look she can tell that he’s given her at least three dollars worth of change, if not more. Jillian feels tears pricking in her eyes just thinking about what that could mean.

 

“Thank you so much, really, you have no idea what this-”

 

“It’s nothing, really- Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?” he asks curiously. Jillian looks at his face for the first time and her throat tightens. It’s her old tech teacher, from before her mom- before she changed schools. She rips her eyes away from his and pulls her denim collar up to hide more of her face.

 

“No, I don’t uh- I don’t think so, no.”

 

“Are you sure? I swear I’ve seen you before.”

 

“I, uh... I sit here, sometimes. Maybe once or twice a week,” Jillian picks at her fingers, “you’ve probably seen me around here, is all.”

 

“No that’s not it... Did you ever go to Central High? I teach-”

 

“Greg, please, we’re going to be late,” his wife pulls at his jacket and throws Jillian an apologetic smile.

 

“Yes, yes you’re right,” he stands up and gives Jillian a lingering look, brow still furrowed before continuing on his way. The minute he’s out of earshot Jillian dumps the change into her pocket and sprints in the opposite direction. She runs as fast as she humanly can, her knees ache at the sudden pounding in the cold and her lungs feel like they’re bleeding but she needs to put as much distance as possible between herself and that man. 

 

Jillian runs until she can’t run anymore, she slumps onto a snowbank and heaves shuddering breaths into her lungs. She rubs her forearms to try and warm up but her skin is still raw and broken and the wind hasn’t stopped ripping through her coat. Even after running for blocks, Jillian is freezing. Once she catches her breath she finds a doorway to stand in out of the wind and pulls out the change from her pocket; she counts eight dollars and forty-five cents. She nearly cries right there in public. It’s enough for her to buy enough food for her and Archie for a week- she could even buy something special like chocolate, or chips. 

 

Her toes sting when she shifts her weight. Her fingers have gone red and she can barely feel them against the coins in her palm. She knows that it’s only going to get colder as winter is just starting to get serious. She can practically taste the food in her mouth as she stares down at the fistful of silver in her shivering palm. Jillian bites her lip and prods the change in her hand as she weighs her options- she could buy food for the week if she budgeted right, or she could go hungry and buy gloves. Or a hat. Or another shirt. Or really anything to help her keep warm. 

 

“Fucking- shit!” she curses and angrily shoves the change back into her pocket. 

 

While she’s in the run-down Goodwill browsing the aisles Jillian is struck with an idea. After casting a cursory glance at the front desk she grabs an armful of clothes and rushes to the changing room. She clicks the lock and takes off her coat before ripping the tags off and putting on all the new clothes. Looking down her front and tucking in the stolen clothes she adjusts her jacket to hide her new bulk. Jillian stares at herself in the mirror before bringing a hand to cover her mouth so nobody hears her sob. 

 

She hates herself for stealing from a Goodwill. Stealing from a charity. Her eyes are sunken and glazed, her cheekbones prominent and windburned, lips bloody and chapped from relentless biting and cold winds. She feels dirty and worthless, like nobody ever wanted her. Her body feels bruised. The insides of her arms are still raw and sore when they rub against the layered fabric of her stolen clothes. Panic and anger start to make her skin crawl like insects and her breathing hitches. 

 

You’re a worthless bitch, just like your mother.

 

Jillian squeezes her eyes shut and covers her ears with the heels of her hands, trying to block out her father.

 

You’re weird, she remembers the words like her memories are steeped in battery acid. Jillian shakes her head violently from side to side. She tries to remember something other than his cruel words.

 

You’re so beautiful, Jillian. I love you, okay? 

 

Jillian’s heart whines at the thought of her mother, the hole in her chest still raw from when she was torn from her life. 

 

You’re a fuckup, Jillian drops onto the bench in the changing room and presses harder against her head. 

 

Nothing is wrong with you, you hear me?

 

You’ll never amount to anything.

 

Jillian curls a hand into a fist and pounds at her ear over and over again, scratching with the other at her neck. It’s too much and not enough and she just wants her mind to shut up and turn off. 

 

I’ll never stop loving you, babygirl.

 

Nobody will ever want your sorry ass.

 

Jillian steals two shirts, a hoodie, a pair of leggings and mittens. She pays for a package of exacto knife blades at the dollar store down the street. Her fingertips glide over the plastic packaging in her pocket on her way back to the alley. She sits still for twenty minutes in the hut before gritting her teeth. With one hand she pulls up the front of her shirt, the other trembles as she holds the metal between two fingers. The metal is cool against her soft skin. She inhales once and slowly drags her hand across her flesh. 

 

“Shit...”

 

The release is euphoric. Her side stings with another flash of metal. And another. Before she knows it there is barely any untouched skin from her bra line to the waistband of her jeans. Her heartbeat pounds in her ears as she watches iron seep from her skin. She gently touches her wounds and relishes in the way her gut churns when she applies pressure. 

 

Jillian ignores the voice in her head telling her this is a very bad idea.

 

* * *

 

Holtz stares at the underside of the Ecto-1 with furrowed brows. What the hell is wrong with this thing? She taps her foot to the beat of her music and rolls further under the car. She runs her hand over the exposed metal and wires, mentally checking step-by-step if everything is in order. It all seems to be good, which is why this is so infuriating. Well, that and the fact that the garage is sweltering thanks to the excess of machines working at once. Holtz wipes at her sweaty brow with the back of her hand before angrily sliding out from under the car.

 

She unbuttons her button off and tugs it off her shoulders before pulling at her black tank top, leaving her in grease-stained jeans and a black sports bra. She dances from the waist up as she tightens her fingerless gloves and readjusts her goggles before laying back down and sliding under the car once again. Starting at the axle and working her way down she starts checking the car out again. After twenty minutes of humming along with Bon Jovi she spots the problem; The ball joint is loose and it looks like something might be wrong with the suspension. Holtz grins, now that she knows what she needs to do. A noise from somewhere else in the garage distracts her thoughts while she makes a mental list of what tools she needs and what parts she has squirrelled away somewhere. 

 

Holtz rolls out from under the car and is shocked to see- 

 

“Erin?”

 

“Holtz! Um, I called your name but the music...” Erin smiles and gestures toward the thumping boom box, “it’s uh, it’s a bit loud!”

 

“Sorry, I lost track of time,” Holtz sticks her tongue out, causing Erin to smile softly, “is the pizza here already?” 

 

“Yeah, it just got here. I thought I’d come get you since I figured you wouldn’t be able to hear us call for you.”

 

Holtz grins before Erin’s eyes flick away from her face and to her arms. Holtz starts to squirm when she realizes that she’s practically topless in front of her co-worker / friend (and maybe crush) who spooned her and then almost kissed her before avoiding her for a week. Erin swallows and Holtz can feel fear brewing as Erin looks at her newly exposed skin. Her eyes land on Holtz’s stomach and Erin’s smile drops completely, her mouth falling open before snapping it shut and averting her eyes.

 

Holtz scrambles for her shirt and tries to stutter out a joke, “can’t a girl get some privacy?” as an attempt at damage control. There’s no way that Erin didn’t see the mass of scars covering her body. She saw the faded white lines, she saw the circular burns, the jagged deep red marks, the pinched skin where she had stitches, she saw all of it. She saw all of it and it made her sick to look at, made her look away. 

 

Erin steps to the side and turns to give Holtz some privacy to put her shirt back on and get up off the skateboard. Holtz feels ashamed, she feels embarrassed that Erin saw her scars before she wanted her to. She feels sick. Just when she thought things might be going in a good direction with Erin she saw... that.

 

Once she’s dressed and ready to go Holtz follows Erin back into the first floor lounge they have set up at headquarters and grabs herself a slice of pizza. She sits as far away from Erin as possible. Truth be told Holtz just wants to go back up to her room and curl up in a ball, she doesn’t feel like watching movies with the gang, but it’s Friday and she usually loves their Friday movie nights. 

 

Holtz tucks her feet up under her in the armchair and huddles to one side, partially turned away from everyone else. She remains silent throughout the argument between Erin and Patty about which movie they’re going to watch and doesn’t crack her usual joke about just marathoning The X-Files if they don’t agree on something. 

 

Abby picks up on her behaviour immediately. Holtz pretends she doesn’t see Abby’s questioning looks and tries to look engrossed in whatever movie they picked, some overly-heterosexual romcom. Abby stretches her leg out from where she’s sitting and gently nudges her knee with her foot, subtly giving her a concerned face. Holtz shrugs before looking back to the screen. Abby sighs softly and Holtz turns to mouth the words _later, okay?_ Abby nods and gives her a sad smile. 

 

That’s one of Holtz’s favourite things about Abby; of course her shared interest in science and her love of soup make her a great friend, not to mention fart jokes, but she’s always respectful of Holtz’s privacy when it comes to something that’s bothering her. Showing that she cares is enough- If Abby is concerned she’ll let Holtz know, but she never pushes her to talk if she doesn’t want to. Abby is the one person who knows just about everything about her because she waits and lets Holtz talk when she’s ready.

 

When they’ve all said their goodnight’s and gone off to their bedrooms, Holtz hears a gentle knock on her door. She doesn’t even need to guess who it is.

 

“Come in.”

 

Abby peeks in and smiles before softly shutting the door behind her and sitting on the bed beside Holtz. The mattress creaks beneath their combined weight and Abby waits patiently for Holtz to organize her thoughts. Holtz picks at her fingertips and sags her shoulders as she exhales.

 

“Okay, so, I think I might have some... feelings... for someone. Which isn’t the main issue here, because they’re not like,” Holtz throws open her hands as she starts to ramble, “ _big_ feelings or anything, just a bit of a crush, and maybe not even that. I don’t even know if she’s straight or not, let alone if she feels the same way... And you know how I am, with the affinity for one night stands, and all that, but this isn’t that kind of thing. I mean like, she’s hot and defs bangable but like I also would maybe want to do all of that domestic stuff-”

 

“This definitely sounds like a crush, Holtz, you just said you want to be domestic with her,” Abby teases before adding very seriously, “whoever this lucky lady is.”

 

Holtz cracks a small smile at the teasing and the fact Abby is pretending to be oblivious about her probably very obvious crush on Erin.

 

“Okay so I might have a crush. Maybe. But that’s not the reason I’m upset.”

 

Holtz bites her lip and fidgets with her hands, not quite sure what to say next. Abby brings a hand up to rub at her back and she exhales again.

 

“You know how I look... without clothes?” Holtz says awkwardly. Abby furrows her brow, not quite understanding, “I mean, sure I’ve seen you naked, but I don’t really...?”

 

Holtz groans and rubs her face with her palms, “umm... gah-” she grits her teeth, “you know my scars? What they look like, yeah?” 

 

“Did- Holtz, did you relaps-”

 

“No!” She can see Abby’s disappointment fade and relief take it’s place.

 

“You know I’ll always talk to you before it gets that bad, Abby.”

 

Abby nods and smiles, letting her get back on track. 

 

“But you know how my skin looks, yeah? All the- stuff, going on? How ‘bad’ it looks?” she gestures to her body, circling her torso and legs. Holtz stumbles over her words, she has no idea how to articulate this gently. Abby nods and Holtz can tell she’s piecing it all together by the sympathetic look starting to form on her face.

 

“Um, this person saw me today and she looked... she looked not good. After she saw. Me. And the stuff. Not all of it, but- but a lot of it.”

 

“Holtz...”

 

She can feel her throat welling up and angrily wipes at her eyes and nose- juts out her chin and stares at the ground between her feet. She wrings her hands before weaving her fingers together and clutching them tight.

 

“And I think... I think it ruined any chance I had, whatsoever, with her.”

 

“I don’t think that’s true, Holtz-”

 

Holtz turns to look Abby, interrupting whatever was going to come after that, “yeah I think it is, Abs, I really- I really do. She looked absolutely revolted. And I know, I know that I’m not gross for having scars, that they’re not inherently bad or wrong because they’re a part of me and I’m healing and they’re healing but I want- I wanted to be in control of when she saw them, you know?” tears stream down her face and she takes a second to compose herself, “I wanted to be able to explain what was happening in my life and that I don’t do it anymore and I wanted her to be able to ask questions and we could talk about it, you know? But now I don’t have that control and I don’t know what she thinks about it and...” 

 

Holtz swallows, barely whispers, “I think... she thinks I’m disgusting.”

 

Abby pulls Holtz into her shoulder and wraps her in a hug. Holtz can feel her tears wetting Abby’s shirt. She rubs reassuring circles between her shoulder blades while she waits for Holtz to be ready. Wiping her eyes and inhaling shakily, Holtz sits back upright and looks into Abby’s eyes with a pleading look.

 

“It just sucks, you know?” her voice is small and afraid, the opposite of her usual self and Abby hates seeing her like this.

 

“Yeah, I know it does. But do you think maybe she was just- I don’t know, surprised?”

 

Holtz sniffs, “wh-what do you mean?”

 

Abby looks deep in thought, as if she’s trying to figure out what the right thing to say is. Holtz feels more and more expectant with every minute that passes.

 

“What do you mean, Abs?” Holtz says with a desperate crack.

 

“I mean... it’s a bit shocking to see, right?” she says, tilting her head to one side.

 

Holtz ducks her head, shame brewing in her gut. Abby immediately reaches out and squeezes her arm.

 

“I don’t mean bad, I just mean... if you didn’t expect it, wouldn’t you be surprised, at least? How would you react to something like that? Imagine if you had a friend that you knew for months and suddenly you saw that they had lots of scars, how would you react? How do you just bring that up in conversation?”

 

Holtz nods and starts to feel a little less hopeless, “yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

 

“For you, you’re used to it. It’s on your body, you know all the answers and you know you don’t do it anymore and why do you did it then and all that other stuff, but now she’s got all these questions out of nowhere. Especially if you don’t know where you stand with someone, that’s a hard thing to suddenly learn and process.”

 

Abby squeezes her arm again before bringing her hands to wrap around Holtz’s.

 

“My suggestion would be to talk to her about it. Maybe just say something like, ‘hey, so I would like a chance to sit down and discuss this with you sometime, if you want’. Let her know that you trust her with this and she’s okay to ask questions.”

 

“That’ll be a fun conversation,” Holtz scoffs.

 

“But a necessary one.”

 

“Yeah, I know, I know. It’ll just suck.”

 

“And who knows, maybe she knows more about self harm than you think.”

 

Holtz hums doubtfully and Abby brings a palm to her cheek, “I’m proud of you, you know that right?”

 

Holtz smiles and nuzzles into her hand.

 

“There’s that smile I know and love!” Abby kisses her forehead, “you okay?”

 

“I am now, yeah. Thanks for, y’know, being there and stuff.”

 

“I’ll always be here, and stuff,” Abby teases. Holtz scrunches her nose at the mockery.

 

“Goodnight Abby.”

 

“Goodnight Holtz.”

 

Abby closes the door behind her with a goofy grin that makes Holtz crack up and laugh. Holtz snuggles into her duvet and decides to talk to Erin tomorrow morning, no matter how much she thinks she’s going to throw up out of nerves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. i have never been homeless, so if i miswrote anything please feel free to msg me and i can fix it!  
> 2\. i myself have dealt with self harm so although it may seem like i have a negative attitude or treatment of it because of some of the dialogue, i in no way shape or form am shaming people who sh!  
> 3\. the next chapter is much happier i swear to gOD IM SORRY 
> 
> 4\. hmu on tumblr @ trezbelivt !

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblr @ trezbelivt !


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